Ladies Night: Connecting Women Through Art and Dialogue

InLiquid presents Ladies Night: Connecting Women Through Art and Dialogue, which is a special collaborative exhibition between InLiquid artist member Cathleen Cohen, the People’s Paper Co-op, and community women from North Philadelphia. As a part of our Art For Action series, which utilizes the arts as a means of education and social reform through exhibitions and public programming, InLiquid sought to create a special exhibition for our Crane Arts gallery space, The Hall. The vision was for an InLiquid artist member to create a series of work inspired from their interaction and collaboration with a local community organization. Painter and poet Cathleen Cohen quickly dove into this project working with our partners at the People’s Paper Co-op. Collaborating with the co-op’s Ladies Night participants at the Village of Arts and Humanities, Cohen has been working with women from the North Philadelphia community that meet regularly to support one another through their experiences with re-entry and more. Every month, community activist and People’s Paper Co-op Fellow Faith Bartley invites all the women from the local community to gather for conversation, art, healing, and nonjudgmental support. Cohen has documented her experiences at Ladies Night through watercolor portraits of the participating women. Cohen shares, “It is a challenge to paint someone’s portrait, to depict the play of the emotions across a face or the gestures of a body. But it is a privilege to sit quietly with someone for a long time and attempt to capture their likeness.”

These portraits will be exhibited alongside information on the People’s Paper Co-op including a portion of their paper quilt consisting of pulped criminal records, Polaroid portraits, and handwritten community reflections created during their expungement clinic events, as well as work created during Ladies Night events including photographs, quotes, poetry books, and other art projects. This exhibit is a true collaboration between Cohen and Bartley, working together to creatively share what Ladies Night and its participants are all about.